Holy shit, what was Eugenie doing? She couldn’t even think crap like that around Rand. I needed to give her some tips on how to shield her thoughts, although her nature was not to be secretive or reserved. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to do it.
“She doesn’t mean it.” I kept my voice even and calm. “You felt how much Eugenie loved the baby she lost, so you can tell she loves this child already. She’s just scared, Rand. You can be overbearing.” And pigheaded, and devious, and did I mention an insensitive boor?
“You’re all talking about me like I’m not here, so I’m leaving.” Eugenie ran from the room, but at least she had the sense to not go outside. She clattered down the hallway and ended her grand exit with a slammed bedroom door.
Well, that had all been just peachy.
Time for damage control. I sympathized with Alex, who was always lamenting the fact that he had to negotiate with pretes rather than just shoot them and be done with it. I could shoot something right now.
“Rand, please go home,” I said. “I guarantee you that Eugenie is not going to do anything to intentionally harm this baby.” Of that much, I was confident. “Give her time to calm down. Remember, this whole world of ours is new to her. She only found out things like wizards and elves existed a couple of weeks ago.”
I was so going to take him to task for that common human remark, but now wasn’t the time to push him.
“I’ll go only if you guarantee me access to her whenever I want, and assure me that if any decision is made that impacts my son, you will tell me if he can’t.”
I nodded before I realized what he’d said. “What do you mean if he can’t?” Adrian had said the child would be able to communicate, but how soon?
“If this were a full elven pregnancy, by the fourth month the child would be able to communicate mentally with both parents. Not words, of course, but just general feelings. Happy. Sad. Excited. Stressed. Since he’s half human, I don’t know. It might happen on schedule, or late, or not at all.”
“That is just … freaky.” Alex uttered his first complete sentence since dumping Rand on the floor.
Rand ignored him. “Dru, can you do a transport back to my house so I don’t have to go back out in the snow?”
“Sure. Not a permanent one, though. Eugenie would have to agree to that and now’s not the time to ask.” I retrieved my messenger bag from beside the sofa and took out my portable magic kit, which badly needed replenishing.
Taking a vial of unrefined sea salt, I spread a slapdash interlocking circle and triangle on Eugenie’s living room floor and looked up at Rand. “What’s the name of the transport in your greenhouse?”
“Rivendell,” he said with a crooked smile, and I burst out laughing. So sue me. Every once in a while, he was funny.
After he stepped in the transport, I pulled Charlie from the messenger bag and touched the tip of the staff to the transport. “Fly to Rivendell, Legolas,” I said.
Rand was smiling when he disappeared.
If only I could banish him to Mordor for the next six or seven months.
CHAPTER 13
Waking up with Alex wrapped around me like a big warm blanket should’ve been the perfect morning-after finale to a night—well, make that an early morning—of great makeup sex. As he’d noted, despite our lack of sleep, we had nervous energy to wear off and we’d almost argued, so makeup sex was appropriate.
We’d finally drifted off sometime after four a.m., boneless and satiated and brimming with endorphins. I no longer felt deprived by my first, and I hoped only, vampire bite.
But I awoke with thoughts first of Rand, which was libido-killing enough, followed by thoughts of Jean Lafitte, from whom I tried to keep my libido at a safe distance. It finally occurred to me that since elves found misery in cold weather, a historically undead pirate bent on revenge might see a snowstorm as an opportunity.
I reached for the nightstand, grabbed my phone, and punched speed-dial number four. I’m not sure if it was practical or pathetic that the Elders had dropped off my phone list and my top four programmed numbers were now Alex (cell), Eugenie (cell), Rene (cell), and Jean Lafitte (hotel suite). Maybe I’d get the pirate a cell phone for his 231st birthday. Or not.
“Bonjour, Jolie. Where are you?”
Lying in a nice, warm bed with a man who isn’t dead. “At Alex’s. How’d you know it was me?”
Said living man grumbled a couple of four-letter expletives in a bad French accent, turned over, and jammed a pillow over his head.
“The telephone”—Jean still stumbled over the newfangled word a bit—“has a square on it where names of people magically appear when they call me. Did the wizards invent this magical square? It is quite clever.”
The wizards could take credit for many innovations, overnight delivery service via transport from the wizards’ central supply house, for example. Caller ID was not among them, however. Many of the older wizards still thought cell phones were the work of demons. Real demons.